Hello again fellow DIY'ers!
It was some time ago I contributed anything substantial to the fine and prestigious community of full range speaker designers, this changes now.
This was a build I was really curious to undertake (read outsource) (yes I'm lazy) (and live in an apartment) (shut up
) and I thought I'd share it with you, drawings and all.
After having seen several compact line source designs based on small full range drivers pop up in the product offerings from big name manufacturers I became intrigued and decided to give this a try.
The Faital Pro 3Fe22 driver seemed too be a good choice since they perform very well, have decent power handling and are affordable in larger quantities.
I decided on a sealed system with ~1,3dm3/driver when sectioning them in groups of four, and it works fine when combined with some low end support, in this case by two THAM10's loaded with Faital Pro 10HP1020.
Drawing:
Build:
Setup:
I'm presently using an INTEL skylake I3 NUC with a HRT microstreamer D/A as source, processed by a DBX Drivereack 260 and powered by two LabGruppen IP450's.
The system sound very clean and dynamic, and it hints of having a lot of headroom if needed, no doubt it is overkill in the SPL department given my current application, but it sounds really good and I'm very happy with it.
No doubt there are flaws, the line sources gets a bit thin below 100Hz for instance, hence the THAM support, but above that they really impress, and if EQ'ed up in the low end they really really impress!
Among the interesting findings are that if I stand up in the sweet spot much of the high end goes away, no surprise really but still interesting, also when walking up to the speaker the level seems to remain constant, again not a surprise, but pretty cool nonetheless.
Integrating the THAM10's was a breeze although i had to gain them done 15dB relative to the line sources, the amps has variable gain settings but I want to recall having set them all the same, will check though.
All in all a very potent and nice sounding little system equally at home in the living room as on an open field at some distance, to be checked this coming summer, I hope
Blog post : Martinsson's Blog - Line source adventures
It was some time ago I contributed anything substantial to the fine and prestigious community of full range speaker designers, this changes now.
This was a build I was really curious to undertake (read outsource) (yes I'm lazy) (and live in an apartment) (shut up
) and I thought I'd share it with you, drawings and all.After having seen several compact line source designs based on small full range drivers pop up in the product offerings from big name manufacturers I became intrigued and decided to give this a try.
The Faital Pro 3Fe22 driver seemed too be a good choice since they perform very well, have decent power handling and are affordable in larger quantities.
I decided on a sealed system with ~1,3dm3/driver when sectioning them in groups of four, and it works fine when combined with some low end support, in this case by two THAM10's loaded with Faital Pro 10HP1020.
Drawing:
Build:
Setup:
I'm presently using an INTEL skylake I3 NUC with a HRT microstreamer D/A as source, processed by a DBX Drivereack 260 and powered by two LabGruppen IP450's.
The system sound very clean and dynamic, and it hints of having a lot of headroom if needed, no doubt it is overkill in the SPL department given my current application, but it sounds really good and I'm very happy with it.
No doubt there are flaws, the line sources gets a bit thin below 100Hz for instance, hence the THAM support, but above that they really impress, and if EQ'ed up in the low end they really really impress!
Among the interesting findings are that if I stand up in the sweet spot much of the high end goes away, no surprise really but still interesting, also when walking up to the speaker the level seems to remain constant, again not a surprise, but pretty cool nonetheless.
Integrating the THAM10's was a breeze although i had to gain them done 15dB relative to the line sources, the amps has variable gain settings but I want to recall having set them all the same, will check though.
All in all a very potent and nice sounding little system equally at home in the living room as on an open field at some distance, to be checked this coming summer, I hope
Blog post : Martinsson's Blog - Line source adventures
Nice! Got any measurements with/without sub? I wonder if making them taller with more drivers might've worked without a sub. You should also look into FIR correction since you are using PC as a source:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full...ectrical-loudspeaker-correction-networks.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full...ectrical-loudspeaker-correction-networks.html
Those look great
I have a pair of three-way line arrays in my garage (12 five" woofers, 20 3" mids and 48 ten mm tweeters) they have a very distinctive sound but I put them on top of dual 15" subwoofers so they have the same sound sitting down or standing up. It's a garage thing, always moving so it seemed like a good design.
When people ask me about them, I tell them if they like such a thing to use 25 Vifa full ranges, 25 to 27 Faital Pro 3" drivers if you want PA level loudness, EQ and subs.
How did the EQ work out for you with the 3FE22? Any wild spikes or humps in the frequency response?
Enjoy your arrays
I have a pair of three-way line arrays in my garage (12 five" woofers, 20 3" mids and 48 ten mm tweeters) they have a very distinctive sound but I put them on top of dual 15" subwoofers so they have the same sound sitting down or standing up. It's a garage thing, always moving so it seemed like a good design.
When people ask me about them, I tell them if they like such a thing to use 25 Vifa full ranges, 25 to 27 Faital Pro 3" drivers if you want PA level loudness, EQ and subs.
How did the EQ work out for you with the 3FE22? Any wild spikes or humps in the frequency response?
Enjoy your arrays
I have only made crude sweet spot RTA measurements using a phonic PAA2 and the only issue detectable there is a hump at ~10kHz, but I do not know if this is a comb filtering/interference remnant, a room ghost or a driver artifact seeing as the system is still quite fresh.
As for the FIR filtering it is indeed interesting, for the moment how ever I'm pleased with the Driverack processing, but who knows what the future might bring.
I went for a compromise regarding the number of driver per column, twelve, this made them ~1m high and easy to handle for mobile use.
The thought here was that they should be able to make use of the THAM designs as foundation, crossed over at 120-140Hz for smaller professional applications, say combined with THAM12/15 or even 18.
In their current environment (livingroom listening position) there is a hump around 10kHz, but as stated above the actual response in free field might look a lot different.
Seeing as they are not slightly curved there should be a lot of cancellations and positive interferences on axis depending on distance, but the positives of this principle still wins out IMHO, small, SPL capable and very clear sounding.
I aimed to create a "top system" that did not take over the living room when in home use and is easy to transport/handle when used in professional applications together with the THAM series for sub support, and in that light I would say -job done!
I have heard these line-arrays and I am impressed!
They have an effortless and transparent presentation of music. Once EQed they have an impressive bass response one would not believe a handful of 3 inch fullrange drivers where capable of. I am curious how they sound once they are freed from having to reproduce bass.
Definitely a very capable and nice sounding top system for both pro audio and home audio use.
Cheers,
Johannes
They have an effortless and transparent presentation of music. Once EQed they have an impressive bass response one would not believe a handful of 3 inch fullrange drivers where capable of. I am curious how they sound once they are freed from having to reproduce bass.
Definitely a very capable and nice sounding top system for both pro audio and home audio use.
Cheers,
Johannes
Great choice! I built 4 of something very similar using 3FE22 last year and have stacked them to create a floor to ceiling array of 24 drivers. That's when the real magic happens!
Bass response is indeed surprising (mine are in a corner too) but I am now planning to build another array using Faital 6FE100 and cross over around 200Hz to free up the little 3 inchers from having to deal with the bass. A sort of F.A.S.T line array I guess..
Bass response is indeed surprising (mine are in a corner too) but I am now planning to build another array using Faital 6FE100 and cross over around 200Hz to free up the little 3 inchers from having to deal with the bass. A sort of F.A.S.T line array I guess..
The "subs" are THAM10's, the smallest ones intended for professional applications:
Martinsson's Blog - THAM family overview
They are a couple of Fostex FX120 based quick and dirty build, a way to small passive radiator design that I'm not all that proud of, but they do the job, they are driven by the televisions own internal amplifier (took the tv apart and rerouted the internal speaker wires to a couple of external connectors).
To build four of them was actually in the initial plan
but I'm having a hard time motivating it, being very happy with the present result as it is.- Status
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